This reminds me of recent discussions on crypto twitter about the place of "human" intervention in blockchains (https://twitter.com/SylTilt/status/1190987896452472832). There are lots of hardliners who view any attempt to create a policy or norm for manual state changes as bringing coercion and authoritarianism into a system that should be, by definition, free of those two things. I think this article is a great example of why others feel that an algorithm reigning autonomously might be just as oppressive, even if it is fair. Twitter's algorithm is sort of like a monocrop -- even if it works well for lots of things, its "mono-ness" gives it dangerous blind spots (i.e. fragility). Local food systems are usually offered as an alternative to industrial monocrops, and compartmentalized social networks like reddit, Facebook groups, and now Relevant, sort of argue the same point: break the network into parts that develop different "local" cultures, and let those different cultures shape the algorithm in their areas of the network. Taking away global rules about maximizing engagement helps push the network in local directions. Maybe we'll see the blockchain world head this way eventually (sharding hints at the possibility): for now, blockchain advocates seem pretty wedded to a single, global state monopolized by a single consensus mechanism.

New post from the Relevant Blog re: political ads, attention, and algorithmic manipulation 🚨 "The problem isn't just advertising, it's the attention economy. When platforms like Twitter and Facebook use engagement-based algorithms, there's no such thing as "free and fair" civil discourse on their networks — even without targeted political ads."

"What does it mean to earn attention on social networks?"

how do we safeguard against the infamous reddit circlejerk tho